A hallmark of Anitah Draimon's career is her ability to effectively manage transitions for companies undergoing rapid growth and change while coaching executives and supporting employees through times of extraordinary challenge. This work prepared her to navigate her own transition when, following the events of 9-11, she knew that it was time to pursue the many creative projects that she had put on hold.
While turning her attention to writing, Anitah consulted with private individuals providing coaching and transition management. She also engaged in consulting assignments with a number of California and Oregon businesses.
She fulfilled her writing objectives and has one e-book available on amazon.com and several others in the publication pipeline. Additionally, she wrote and produced a series of CDs titled Job Loss/Personal Gain also on Amazon with companion workbooks offered on her website. Anitah placed third in an international poetry contest and has created an extensive body of poetry, a number of them incorporated into her original fabric art that has been featured in several art galleries.
Prior to 2002, Anitah was a Sr. Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at Providian Financial Corporation in San Francisco, CA, one of the leading credit card issuers in the United States. (She transferred in 1997 from Providian's insurance arm based in Philadelphia, PA that she had joined in 1993. There she served as Sr. Vice President of Employee Relations.) In San Francisco, Anitah managed 43 individuals with a division budget of $13 million though she was indirectly responsible for 200 company-wide technical trainers with a budget of $10 million. Early on, she re-engineered the HR function and aligned it with Providian's IPO goal and successfully managed the HR impact of a 350% surge in employee population growth over four years working at both a business unit and company-wide level.
Anita designed, launched, and managed Providian's corporate university and reduced intellectual capital turnover by an average of 50% in each of three years compared to the non-participant peer group. She designed and administered an employee retention function that realized $3 million a year in cost savings by extending the tenure of key employee population groups. Additionally, she directed the development of an award-winning orientation and acculturation program. Throughout this time, she personally engaged in executive coaching.
While at Providian's Philadelphia division, Anitah re-engineered the employee relations function and downsized the department by 10% while expanding to three new locations. She further downsized 20% of the employee population having an average tenure of 20 years with no employee litigation or actions and designed and managed an effective in-house outplacement service for both downsized employees and their spouses/partners.
Before joining Providian, Anitah was a senior executive in local and regional banks in the Philadelphia area. Most of her time was spent re-engineering and managing all the aspects of both the human resources and the development functions while personally engaging in executive coaching. HR responsibilities included employee relations, executive coaching, organization development, training and development, salary administration, benefits, recruiting, change management, employee communications, and HR contract management. For a five-year period, she was the executive in charge of corporate marketing and investor relations in support of an IPO process. Prior to her corporate experience, Anitah taught all levels of education.
To ensure that she always maintained a balanced perspective, Anitah chose to step out of a corporate structure and successfully functioned as an independent consultant several times during her career. Experiencing the world of work "from both sides," has given her unique insight into ways of optimizing business results by motivating and retaining key talent. These experiences have honed her abilities as a leader who is both visionary and strategic as well as pragmatic and results-oriented. She functions with whole-system awareness of business interdependencies.
Anitah is a successful executive with the demonstrated skills to support organizations as they evolve in response to rapidly changing market conditions. Her acknowledged talents have made a measurable impact on the companies she served, and her superb leadership skills have helped employees mature their own talents and optimize their business contribution. Anitah is a past President of the 1,200 member Philadelphia member of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) and is a current member of the Organizational Development Network, Institute of Management Consultants, and the Society of Humanistic Psychology.
